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Leamington Letters #29: what's a classic?

11/8/2012

4 Comments

 
Like many of us, I am a tad too loose in my use of the word 'classic'. I will, willy-nilly, refer to classic albums, classic races, classic songs, classic games. I will even discuss classic books.
 
But I am not clear about the precise definition of a classic. Professor John Sutherland believes that
classics "don't just cross time, they cross frontiers". And Oxford academic Patrick Hayes claims that "whether something is a classic gets judged over an awfully long time, by readers who return to the work again and again and repeatedly discover in that work something compelling or
powerful".
 
But these aren't definitions, merely descriptions. They don't help us to identify a classic, and they
certainly don't relate in any manner I can see to the latest addition to the list of Penguin Modern Classics.  

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby is a book which I loved from the very first paragraph, the very first sentence. So many of its themes - no, it is not solely about football - resonated with me. Like his subsequent novel, much of it could have been about me. I recognised and laughed at my own obsessions; even more so when Fever Pitch was moved by American movie makers from North London to Boston, from the Arsenal to the Sox.

So a lovely book, a well-written book,a very personal book. But a classic? Only in the sense that it is an exemplary memoir of its kind, which is the Nick Hornby kind. It is not Ulysses. It is not The Great Gatsby. It is not The Aleph or the The Plague or Pale Fire - all of which are titles are taken (almost) at random from the list of
Penguin Modern Classics which Fever Pitch now joins.
 
Earlier this week, my friend Neil Bevan and I devoted a bottle of St Veran to a conversation about detective fiction, what the Americans call mystery. We started with Dennis Lehane, and  worked backwards "down these mean streets" in company with Richard Stark's Parker, Robert B Parker's Spenser and John D MacDonald's Travis McGee until we reached the original "man who is not himself mean", Raymond Chandler's Marlowe.
 
I am delighted to note that Chandler features on the Penguin list. I am less pleased to see, in a small paragraph buried within the plethora of Olympic coverage in my newspaper, that John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, is to revive the character of Marlowe in a forthcoming novel.
 
I have the utmost admiration for Banville in both his literary manifestations, but I am concerned. Robert B Parker attempted to complete an unfinished Marlowe novel, and failed dismally.
 
Parker of course wrote his PhD on Chandler and taught a course on crime fiction at Boston. His own protagonist, Spenser is an obvious hommage to Marlowe. He understands the nuances of the genre and the style. But he failed. Banville is a more literary  writer, a winner - thanks in no small part to the passionate advocacy of Rick Gekoski - of the Booker. As Benjamin Black, he writes excellent detective stories. But I doubt he can take on the Master.
 
The great Italo Calvino wrote: "a classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans". Chandler's Marlowe novels, I believe, qualify on this level. 

Fever Pitch, excellent though it is, important though it is, hugely enjoyable though it is, does not. Sorry, Nick.
 
Today's listening: Chansons Sans Paroles. I thought Neil meant the Mendlessohn; in fact, he meant the Brahms. But I've been listening to the Mendlessohn anyway, played with immaculate precision and elegance by Daniel Barenboim.


 
4 Comments
Max Smith
12/8/2012 07:30:47

Had I posted this blog today rather than yesterday, I would have written having read an editorial on this subject in today's Observer. It quoted Frank Kermode. Classics, he said, are "old books that people read". (Had I known the Observer was to address the issue, I probably would not have posted at all.)

Reply
Neil Bevan
14/8/2012 10:56:56

Surely classics are also old books that people
claim to have read; or feel that they should read;
or even delude themselves into believing that
they have read. 'Old' is probably the key word
though - a classic needs a bit of bottle-age -
unlike St. Veran. One reason why 'Fever Pitch
doesn't make the cut?

I greatly enjoyed both the bottle and the chat about
thrillers, Max. But your post omits my favourite part
of that quote about Marlowe being a man who
is himself not mean; it finishes (as you know!)
"... who is neither tarnished nor afraid." Classic!

Léon

Reply
Martin
15/8/2012 08:29:57

Books, cars, guitars, scientific experiments, bowling actions ... classics seem just to be where someone got it right, and produced an object or act of such timeless perfection that it will endure as a reference. 'The Wind in the Willows', a Citroen DS, a Fender Telecaster, Millikan's oil-drop experiment, Dennis Lilly; but not Harry Potter, a Paul Reed Smith, the revelation of the Higg's Bosun at CERN or Jeff Thompson, however good or successful any of the latter might be.

As for Nick Hornby's 'Fever Pitch', the way the football gave him and his estranged dad something better to share than a MacDonald's on their contact weekends was moving and timeless, and there's something timeless in the way that that football knowledge gave him protection in the school playground. But it's also of its time, that being one of change for professional football and the onset of self-conscious 'lad-culture'. It gave lads license to express emotions of belonging and desire and to think of themselves as participants in something complex and mystical. My father never thought of his lifelong involvement with football like that and I don't expect I did I until 'Fever Pitch'.

A good title, but no classic. Everybody climbs on board 'classic' now. It's become an empty marketing word.

Reply
myers
16/8/2012 22:58:22

Surely anything considered to be classic is only the subjective view encompassed in the phrase"......in the eye of the beholder"?
A "Lord" David Gower cover drive [where not a man moved] appeared effortless and classical, or just lucky according to the bowler and recorded as 4 along with "cow corner" slogs!
If things of their time and for all time are they classic? [E type, coalitions?]
I haven't read the book in question, too busy watching Messi...not sure where this is going, then again too much classic vintage always has this effect!

Reply



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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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